


running just as fast as we can (holding on to one another's hands)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: tell my father (this is my life) [10]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Drabbles, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Apocalypse, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Temporary Character Death, Vignettes, you know which sibling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: 00.01: The letters burn and it feels like he's finally come home.00.02: Going on double dates with Dave and Klaus is generally a fun time- that is, until Dave and Patch randomly disappear in the middle of the date.00.03: She runs her fingers through her sister's hair and she thinks, heart in her throat,I wish you never have to go through that again.00.04: Vietnam has got to be one of the most convenient places to die. With all the mess, no one ever seems to notice a wound that heals too quickly or should kill him but doesn't.00.05: To everyone's shock, Five quickly becomes Claire's favorite Uncle.00.06: Ben dies of an easily avoidable mishap, one that Klaus spends years teasing him about.00.07: Being happy, being even remotely well-adjusted, is a certain wonderful "fuck-you" to the Dad who never truly loved them.(A series of vignettes based around the Hargreeves siblings and how they proved their father wrong.)





	running just as fast as we can (holding on to one another's hands)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany, which all you lil' shits should know by now.
> 
> The bolded text is taken from the personal notes of Sir Reginald Hargreeves, mentioned in the comics, specifically in Apocalypse Suite, Vol. 1, pg. 1.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, some scenes take place before the series while others take place afterwards, within this 'verse's timeline. However, all these scenes take place before Diego nearly drowns.

_One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them._

**― Aldous Huxley**

 

**_[00.01] Dedication bordering on inhuman. My favorite._ **

When Luther's laying in bed in the months after the Not-Apocalypse, he often finds himself looking out the window at the moon, at the place where he spent four years alone, without human contact, stuck in solitary confinement holding onto a hope founded in a fiction.

Last week, he destroyed all the reports he sent back to his father. Pogo made a single protest before just nodding and offering up the living room fireplace as a place to burn them.

Luther was raised to be loyal, that's a fact. He's dedicated and determined and he knows nothing better than doing everything possible to make someone proud, to protect someone.

But here's the question he finds himself answering so differently now than when he was a kid: loyal to who?

Every one of his siblings left, and he remained. He always remained.

But now- they're back, living at the mansion, learning to live and love each other, and he's letting go of the past. He's letting go of Dad.

Loyal to who? He's still loyal to his family. But this time around, it's not blind loyalty. It's earned loyalty, redemptive loyalty, him trying his best to make up for the mistakes of his past.

The letters burn and it feels like he's finally come home.

 

**_[00.02] An insolent brat._ **

Going on double dates with Dave and Klaus is generally a fun time- that is, until Dave and Patch randomly disappear in the middle of the date and Diego ends up watching, to his amusement, for a few minutes as Klaus continues to talk to Dave and Patch without realizing that no one can see the two of them anymore.

It often leads to rather interesting reactions from the wait staff at the diner, sideways glances and raised eyebrows and whispers behind the front counter. Diego doesn't give two shits, though- seeing his brother happy is plenty enough.

Diego normally lets his brother’s happy conversation run up until the waitress will inevitably come over and ask where the two old customers went.

Klaus glares at Diego, as if to say, _you let me keep going?_ And Diego will just smirk on.

And this repeats over and over, Klaus' glare softening each time until he's eventually figuring out what's happening ahead of time and using his abilities to pull pranks by talking about the most absolutely inappropriate things at the table or playing up the 'insanity' aspect of his powers.

And yeah, sometimes it gets annoying, but at the end of the day, Diego kind of falls in love with being able to do stupid things like this with his brother. After so many years of distance, of letting the past and Klaus' addiction and Diego's trust issues get between them, this pranking of each other (with the help of their respective partners, eventually) has got to be some of the most fun Diego's ever gotten to have.

 

**_[00.03] Insufferable, narcissistic creature._ **

Allison spends months after the Not-Apocalypse talking to Vanya before bed. On every night save Wednesdays- those are reserved for the diner and her brothers- she heads up to Vanya’s room and talks about everything and nothing, telling her the stories that she used to tell Claire. Allison finds herself cuddling with Vanya on the nights when Dave's corporeal, on the nights when Klaus is with his boyfriend, listening to Vanya's stories about her old girlfriend and things she's done over the years they've been distant.

And after Vanya's fallen asleep, Allison finds herself curled up with her sister. She runs her fingers through her sister's hair, feels Vanya's slow, asleep breathing on her neck, and she thinks, heart in her throat,  _I wish you never have to go through that again._

 _I wish that you're happy._  

She's almost- almost, that's the key word- tempted to Rumor Vanya's happiness into being. She wants nothing more than for Vanya not to have to grieve anymore, for her to be able to have a happy ending.

But Allison's not that person anymore. She's not going to manipulate people's feelings and force them into things they're not, even if she has an altruistic motive for the Rumor.

So instead she just tells Vanya stories and holds her through her nightmares and tries to support her the best she can.

 

**_[00.04] Stunted by fretful, morbid temperament._ **

Klaus dies in Vietnam, and meets God’s angels for what’s probably the thirtieth time. It takes no time for Ed- yeah, the angel’s named Ed, Klaus long ago stopped questioning why not a single angel he meets has anything approaching a biblical name- to punt him back to his own body, where he ends up with a small cut where a bullethole was moments ago.

Vietnam has got to be one of the most convenient places to die. With all the mess, no one ever seems to notice a wound that heals too quickly or should kill him but doesn't. There are much greater things to worry about, like the Vietcong, and as long as you're alive and kicking and not in the worst possible shape then you and your wounds tend to slip past people's notice.

Which means that Dave, as smart as he is, never picks up on the fact that Klaus has died at least seven times before they even hit their six-month anniversary. Not even on the nights where they find themselves in the back rooms of Vietnamese clubs, bodies pressed up against each other, does Dave have the opportunity to notice the nearly-healed scars. They're distracted by other things, whether the music in the club or their fingers in each others' hair or the bombs crashing into their squatting positions.

Klaus keeps drinking in Vietnam- just enough to keep the ghosts away, though not enough to dull his skills in war. In Vietnam, Klaus gets to learn just how accurate of a shot he is. (And it turns out that he’s pretty damn good.)

Ben's not there. Ben's not even alive yet, much less dead, which leaves Klaus without his brother and best friend. So Klaus learns to cope with everything in other ways, telling his fellow soldiers stories about his childhood disguised as fairytales. He may not be the best shot in the unit, or the bravest- but he is the one who gives everyone hope with his stories. He's the one that reminds them that yeah, the war might be hopeless, but life is not.

But then Dave dies, and the only person Klaus has ever fallen in love with (the only person who has ever loved Klaus back) is gone, and so he takes that briefcase and runs.

 

**_[00.05] Disappeared several days ago. No great loss._ **

To everyone's shock, Five quickly becomes Claire's favorite Uncle. She likes Uncles Luther and Ben and Diego and Klaus, but Uncle Five? With his sharp sense of humor and ability to pop anywhere and his awkward smile? Oh god, Claire can't get enough of him.

And Five, to be honest, absolutely loves his niece. She's got an insane imagination, just like all children, but she's also rather smart. She's only five-years-old but she's already reading chapter books (basic ones, yes, but she's at a fourth-grade reading level already). She tells him (three separate times in the first day he spends with her) that she knows everything about the Titanic, which turns out to be  _plenty_ , nearly all of it extraordinarily accurate. (And trust Five, he  _knows_. Taking out one of the engine-room staff on his way to the ship was one of Five's first missions.)

(Allison informs him that Claire's most likely going to be diagnosed with ADHD soon. She goes through hyperfixations like this every few months, bouncing from fascination to fascination- the last time Allison was here, Claire had memorized everything she possibly could about sea turtles.)

Without Five, the world falls. He's seen the evidence, he's seen the bodies. He saw his family dead under the collapsed mansion, gotten used to the rotting stench of their bodies in his nostrils.

But he never found Claire's body. California hadn't existed after the Apocalypse, collapsed into the Pacific Ocean, and he can't help but be glad. Five can't remember her corpse and, in a way, that's a blessing. All he can see when he looks at her is her bright smile and curly hair and exuberant energy, and that's all he needs.

When Five dreams at night, he doesn't have nightmares of Claire's body. Instead, all he dreams of is her dragging him in games of Princess and Cowboy dress-up games (he had worn the tiara while she had been the Cowboy who had "saved" him from the "Dragon" that was played by Diego).

And he much prefers these dreams of family to the nightmares he lived with in the Apocalypse. Nightmares haven't been entirely eliminated- psychology doesn't allow for that- but they are a bit soothed.

 

 **_[00.06] Easily manipulated. Must learn to suppress my nausea in order to study further._ ** 

Ben dies of an easily avoidable mishap, one that Klaus spends years teasing him about.

He’d been on a mission with Luther and he'd had his monsters out, taking out some idiots who had decided to steal from the  _exact same_ bank that the Umbrella Academy had defended eleven years ago, and he’d seen a little girl about to get crushed. He'd ran to help her, and he'd completely missed the falling ceiling beam.

The beam had sunk through the soft flesh of his chest, the weak spot where the tentacles emerged, and pierced his heart. He’d died on the spot.

He wakes up on the floor of Klaus' room. Klaus is in the middle of popping some pills, and he doesn't seem too nonplussed when Ben sits up.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" Ben asks, and Klaus nods. "For how long?"

"About two weeks," Klaus, the slightest of slurs to his voice, and Ben wonders just how many drugs he's taken since Ben died. "Your funeral was yesterday."

Ben starts to note all the differences to his body. He's not breathing and his heart's not beating, though it doesn't seem to be negatively impacting him in any way. He's wearing the black hoodie and leather jacket that he was wearing when he died, though the wound in his chest seems to be nonexistent. There's no pain, no blood sticking to his chest, no hole through his jacket. He seems to just be...dead. That's it. "What did Dad say?"

Klaus rolls his eyes and snorts. "What do you think dear old Dad said?"

Ben's not a fool. "Probably said that I was an idiot for trying to help that girl."

"Not in as many words, but yeah," Klaus says.

Of course.

 

**_[00.07]_ **

**_No discernible talents. Utterly useless._ **

Vanya stands on the stage at the orchestra, and for the first time in her life she can see all of her siblings in the crowd. And it’s not just them, either- thanks to Klaus' powers, Ben, Patch, and Dave are there. Even Alyssa flew in for her concert, having gotten off that Friday for a holiday, and Vanya can just barely see their faces in the audience beyond the stagelights. There's something warm in her chest, something strange in the most fucking wonderful way.

When she arrives backstage after the concert, her whole idiot family is waiting there, half of them with flowers in their hands. Alyssa has a small bouquet of purple tulips, which makes Vanya smile at the memory of their conversation on their third date, a couple of months ago. Alyssa's dads run a flower shop together, and Alyssa went on a half-hour long tangent about the meaning behind different kinds of flowers. She remembers Alyssa explaining that purple tulips represented congratulations for accomplishments, though not just any accomplishments- specifically those of your loved ones.

It's so diffferent to have this sheer number of people here to support Vanya. Her concerts over the years had Jeanine for a little while, until she died, and then Vanya had no one there for any of her concerts until her first one as first-chair, right after the not-Apocalypse, the concert that five of her siblings had been present for. (Klaus says Ben was there, but he just wasn't corporeal yet.)

Vanya hums Alyssa's song ( _Wild Heart_ by Bleachers, a pretty upbeat tune that Alyssa has on nearly every playlist she has, even the ones specifically designed for her students' play time) and one flower rises up out of each of her siblings' bouquets. They spin around, weaving themselves into a small wreath, and then land on Vanya's head. It's a bit of a contrast to her sharp tux, but the fond smile on Alyssa's face is worth it.

Vanya isn't a hero. She never learned how to use her powers to destroy. In the moments where she didn't have control, when she didn't know what was inside of her- her powers lashed out, yes. But now that she knows how to manipulate her abilities- she has never been taught to fight with her powers. She has never  _wanted_ to fight with her powers. 

She uses them to heal and create, to do good, to do justice and make things right. She uses them to spark joy, to give people happiness, to ger rid of old hurts and create new joys.

She uses her extra-ordinariness to create ordinary happiness. 

And in a way, she is being almost violently optimistic in her efforts. Being happy, being even remotely well-adjusted, is a certain wonderful "fuck-you" to the Dad who never truly loved them.

"Love the crown, sis," Klaus says, eyes bright, as Vanya leans forward and kisses Alyssa's cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> The finale of this series is in the works, I promise! Allison's POV is just taking a lot of work, from sculpting her backstory to developing her character arc to dealing with Jack and tying everything together. I just hope you guys enjoy this is the meantime. Comments and kudos are very much appreciated if you enjoyed, and constructive criticism is still appreciated even if you didn't.


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